


Into the white

by weeping00willow



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Corpses, Gen, Gore, Horror, Introspection, M/M, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 20:21:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7521799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weeping00willow/pseuds/weeping00willow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During his first mission beyond the Wall, Theon and a group of brothers of the Night's Watch get captured by the Thenns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the white

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what possessed me to write this. Not for the weak of heart, just to be on the safe side.

He doesn’t remember how long it’s been. Day seems to blend too easily into night out here in the cold, under the snow, in this cocoon of rot and filth and death. His arms and legs have long since gone numb, and he has gotten used to the smell of decay by now. At least he doesn’t have anything left inside his stomach to retch; the last time he did that he almost choked to death on his own bile. Maybe it would have been kinder to let himself die. 

He can feel the maggots trailing up and down his skin, looking for a soft place to gnaw at and make their way inside. Vomit and blood and excrement cover him in flakes and he itches, he would give anything to be able to scratch them off. But there is no room for him to twist under the weight of his fellow Crows. The pieces around him sometimes twitch with an unholy instinct to reform, but he has learned to ignore them too. They give him the illusion of companionship in the dark. His comrades are beginning to bloat, sapping the warmth out of his skin; soon there won’t be any place left for him to breathe if this goes on any longer. It seems the larder has become defective, all the food is going to waste.

Theon would laugh if he had air enough to do it, if he weren’t crushed on all sides by the corpses of his fellow brothers of the Watch. He thinks he should be more worried, he knows it is only a matter of time before he succumbs as well, to the filth, the stench, the putrid touch of death. But now he is strangely calm.

Sure enough, he kicked and screamed and fought it at first, for hours on end after they buried him in the pit, after they made him watch as they butchered his brothers and ate their raw flesh, after they tore the limbs off the more belligerent ones and impaled them on spikes over the fire. So much blood covering the snow, so much noise; he can still hear their voices as they hurt, as they died.

They kept him alive to bear witness, they left him here stripped bare and covered in death to await the arrival of his Crows. He is a messenger. He is proof and warning of what awaits those who venture beyond the Wall.

They have all left, and now there is only silence, and cold and death.

Minutes, hours, days move past.

Theon sleeps and he dreams.

He dreams of worried brown eyes looking down at him from a beautiful face, dark curls whipping in the wind and obscuring the lead sky beyond. 

He dreams of powerful arms wrapping around him, pulling him away from death, as if from a mother’s womb, exposing him to a world of infinite white. 

He dreams of clouds whipping past him as he flies, somehow free and safe and weightless. 

He dreams of cleansing water and soft linen and warmth, of hands and lips touching him gently into the night, of promises and vows whispered in his ear, of skin the way it is supposed to be, smooth and pressed against his mouth and throbbing with life.

He dreams that he is waiting to wake up once again to the pit.

It is only a matter of time.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, nor is this work intended for profit.


End file.
